4.5 Discuss conflicts arising from the
exploitation of natural resources. Suggest compromise actions, which would
allow for both use of the resource and the maintenance
of a high degree of ecological integrity. For example,
reference could be made to one of the following:
- forest clearance, development of marinas, impact of
tourism on coastal resources, over- fishing.

A feature or component of the natural
environment that is of value in serving human needs,
e.g. soil, water, wildlife, etc. Some natural resources
have an economic value (e.g. timber) while others have a
'non-economic' value (e.g. scenic beauty)1.

Types of Natural
Resources

Natural resources can be divided into
several categories:

(1) Nature’s Goods

These are the traditional “extractable”
resources, e.g.

- Fossil fuels: oil, coal, natural gas

- Metallic ores: iron, copper, silver,
gold etc.

- Biological supplies: timber, fisheries,
wild game, natural rubber

(2) Nature’s Services

These are essential services provided by
nature for the continued, sustainable health and
well-being of our environment. These are typically
considered “renewable” resources, e.g.

- Soils for production

- Water and the hydrology cycle

- Air and purification of air

- Global carbon cycle

- Stratospheric ozone shield

(3) Natural Amenities

These are non-essential (?) services
provided by nature; may be considered “quality-of-life”
services, e.g.

- Recreation

- Aesthetics 2

Exploitation of natural resources

Exploitationof natural resources
is an essential condition of the human existence. Throughout history, humans have
manipulated natural resources to produce the materials
they needed to sustain growing human populations. This refers primarily to food production,
but many other entities from the natural environment
have been extracted. Often the exploitation of nature
has been done in a non-sustainable way, which is causing
an increasing concern, as a non-sustainable exploitation
of natural resource ultimately threatens the human
existence. 3, 4

If you look at Figure 2, you can see how
the human population has grown over time. For centuries
our numbers grew relatively little, but then began an
upward climb about 1700. This increase was nothing
however compared to the rise that occurred beginning
about 1950. Improved sanitation, better medical care,
and increases in the food supply came together to
produce the rate of growth you see. The Earth’s human
population did not pass the 1 billion mark until 1804;
it then took 123 years to double to 2 million (in 1927),
then 48 years to double to 4 billion (in 1974), and has
now exceeded 6 billion. The earth’s population is
projected to grow from its present 6.2 billion to
between 8.5 and 11 billion by the end of the
twenty-first century.

What impact is this population increase
having on the quality of the Earth’s environment?

With respect to the environment, many
scientists would argue that there is no greater single
environmental threat than the continued growth of the
human population. The basis for this argument is that
population affects so many environmental issues: the use
of natural resources, the amount of waste that is pumped
into the environment daily, the reduction of species
habitat, the decimation of species through hunting and
fishing. Look at almost any environmental problem and
you’re likely to find human population growth playing a
part in it. 5

Note that overpopulation is not simply
too many people, but rather, more people than the
earth’s resources can support.6
Overpopulation may be defined as excessive population of an area to the
point of overcrowding, depletion of natural resources,
or environmental deterioration.7

Although techniques for birth control are highly
effective and well known in the more developed
countries, they are unknown, unavailable, or
unacceptable to those people having the most rapid rate
of population growth - the ones who also live in the
most precarious balance with their environment. This
does not mean that the prospects for controlling
population increase are poor; actually, they are better
than at any time in the past. But more education is
needed to encourage people to limit the size of
families, and the prospects for economic and
environmental betterment for those who have fewer
children must be made more obvious.6

Other experts argue that it is not
population per se, but rather the use of resources per
person that is of most pressing concern.
For instance, the United States used less water in 1995
than it did in 1980, even though the U.S. population
grew by 16 percent during the period.5

The use of resources per person is much
higher in the more developed countries than in the less
developed countries.5 For instance,
the high per capita residential water use
rates in North America (around 400 litres per person a
day) and Europe (about 200 litres) has declined somewhat
in recent years, in response to higher prices and
environmental awareness. But in many Sub-Saharan
countries the average per capita use rates are
undesirably low (10–20 litres
per person a day) and need to be increased. 8

Given this, a concern for
environmentalists is the strain that economic
development will put on the Earth’s environment
irrespective of human population growth. 5

b. Inefficiency in Resource
Utilisation

More than 300 million Africans still lack
access to safe drinking water and 14 countries on the
continent suffer from water scarcity. Out of 55
countries in the world with domestic water use below 50
litres per person per day (the minimum requirement set
by the World Health Organization), 35 are in Africa.

Meanwhile, Africa has seemingly abundant
water resources that are not being efficiently utilised.
With 17 large rivers and more than 160 major lakes,
Africa only uses about 4 per cent of its total annual
renewable water resources for agriculture, industry and
domestic purposes. The challenge is getting water to
where it is needed most, affordably and efficiently.
Currently, about 50 per cent of urban water is wasted,
as is 75 per cent of irrigation water. 9

In many larger cities of Asia and Latin
America the total water produced by utilities is very
high, from 200–600 litres per person a day, but up to
70% is lost to leaks. 8

c. Overconsumption

In the U.S. today, there are more private
vehicles on the road than people licensed to drive them;
indeed, about one-quarter of the world's cars are found
on U.S. roads. New houses in the U.S. were 38 percent
bigger in 2000 than in 1975, despite having fewer people
in each household on average. Such consumption
patterns help explain why, with only 4.5 percent of the
world's population, the U.S. accounts for some 25
percent of global greenhouse gas emissions widely
understood to contribute to global warming. The average
U.S. citizen currently consumes five times more energy
than the average global citizen, ten times more than the
average Chinese, and 20 times more than the average
Indian, according to the 30th annual edition of
Worldwatch Institute's 'State of the World' released in
January, 2004.

U.S. consumption styles have not only
spread to other industrialized nations, they have
succeeded in penetrating much of the developing world as
well. In China alone, 240 million people have joined
the ranks of the "consumer class,'' accounting for about
five percent of the estimated 1.7 billion people
worldwide who have adopted the diets, transportation
systems, and lifestyles pioneered in the U.S. and
quickly taken up by other industrialized nations during
the last century, according to the 245-page report. By
contrast, some 2.8 billion people live on less than US$2
a day, 1.1 billion of whom lack access to safe drinking
water. 10

Many people think that the world could be
on the edge of an environmental breakdown due to the
overconsumption and misuse of natural resources.

One recent study, 'Beyond the Limits',
uses computer modelling to try to predict what the
likely effects of our current life-style will be. As a
basis for their research the authors took current
figures on rates of growth for population, resource use
and pollution. They then constructed a computer model
and fed in figures for estimated levels of non-renewable
resources, land available for growing, the ability of
the Earth to absorb pollution, and other limiting
factors. Also in the programme was information regarding
the way all these factors interact, for example the time
delays before effects of pollution occur. The programme
was then run several times with differing conditions or
'scenarios' imposed.

The Scenarios

What follows is vastly simplified, but
illustrates the point. In scenario 1, which assumes that
everything in the world goes on as is, collapse (i.e.
sudden, uncontrolled decline in population and output)
occurs, largely because of loss of non-renewable
resources.

So, in scenario 2, it is assumed that
there are much larger quantities of non-renewable
resources. In scenario 2, the primary factor causing
collapse is not resources running out, but pollution,
which massively decreases land fertility.

So, in scenario 3 it is assumed that
pollution abatement technology makes a successful
decrease in pollution levels; but this time population
grows until it is too high to be fed.

In scenario 4 technologies to increase
land yield of food is assumed however land erosion
causes a collapse. And so on...

The only scenario in which collapse does
not occur is one in which there are:

While scientists can never predict
exactly what will happen in the future, they can
usefully show us the likely consequences of our actions
and the general direction in which the planet is
heading. We can then draw conclusions and take actions
based on their findings.6

d. Poverty
and Other Socioeconomic Problems

Conventional thinking on poverty and
environment includes assumptions that are increasingly
being called into question:

-
Poverty needs to be eradicated in developing countries
before they can turn their attention to environmental
protection; and

- Poverty and environment are
linked in a "downward spiral" in which poor people
forced to overuse environmental resources for their
daily survival are further impoverished by the
degradation of these resources. Population growth and
economic change are also seen to contribute to this
process.

In addition, many of the environmental
problems that have been identified in the international
arena as the world’s most pressing are not those that
affect poor people in developing countries most
severely. For example, lack of sanitation and clean
water (rather than issues that preoccupy developed
countries, such as ozone depletion and global warming) –
are arguably the worst environmental problems in the
developing world.

Many donors and policy-makers (especially
since the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development, UNCED) have begun to embrace more
localized, community-based approaches to natural
resource management and sustainable development. This
approach is informed by an understanding that the
various groups in a society often experience
environmental problems in very different ways.

They are also advocating an alternative,
approach to understanding the relationship between
poverty and the environment, which shifts the emphasis
from questions of resource availability to those of
access, control and management. This means increasingly
searching for ways in which policy interventions can
achieve objectives to promote poverty eradication and
sound environmental management, thus creating "win-win"
situations for poor people and the environments in which
they live 6.

In a Jamaican context, socioeconomic
problems regarding poverty and crime are major
concerns. With a murder rate among the highest in the
world (see Crime Graph -
Murders per Capita),
the environmental issues are often put lower on the list
of pressing issues to be dealt with.

Considering the potential of new
technology and the accompanying advances in science, it
is possible to foresee a world in which a relatively
stable human population can live at a high level of
material affluence, with wild nature continuing to exist
in abundance and relatively undisturbed lands available
for human enjoyment. But this optimistic point of view
is not supported by existing world conditions.

Because knowledge now available is more
than adequate to solve most of the world's major
environmental problems, the problems are not those of
science and technology but of the arrangements and
functioning of human institutions and of the attitudes
of individuals.

Thus, while research in science continues
in all the universities and other schools of the world,
tropical forests and coral reefs are being devastated in
ways that suggest that the science of these natural
objects are still unknown. Although the techniques for
managing livestock have reached a high level of
sophistication, overexploitation continues around most
of the world's major pasturelands, deserts and oceans,
and animals die of hunger, people suffer from
deprivation, and the deserts spread. Obviously, the
knowledge available does not reach or influence the
behaviour of most of the people on our planet.

A key point is the failure of most
societies to exercise adequate controls over land,
water, and other resource use. Effective means for
controlling land use do not exist in most countries;
laws and regulations that permit governments to exercise
such control, when existent, often cannot be enforced
because of strong public resentment and resistance.
Although it is essential that lands and all other
resources be used with a view to preserving their future
productivity, this view often conflicts with present
needs or demands of the resource users. The solution to
this conflict is not within the scope of science or
technology; instead, it is a question of attitudes and
values and these are more difficult to change than laws
or regulations. 6

- The “frontier mentality”
– There are many resources and they are all for me

- Corporate greed

For many people an environmental crisis
of this complexity and scope is not only the result of
certain economic, political, and social factors. It is
also a moral crisis which, in order to be addressed,
will require broader philosophical and religious
understandings of ourselves as creatures of nature,
embedded in life cycles and dependent on ecosystems.
Religions may need to be reexamined in light of the
current environmental crisis. This is because religions
help to shape our attitudes toward nature in both
conscious and unconscious ways. Religions provide basic
interpretive stories of who we are, what nature is,
where we have come from, and where we are going.
Religions also suggest how we should treat other humans
and how we should relate to nature. These values make up
the ethical orientation of a society. 6

more efficient use of timber,
recycling (paper/timber), alternative materials
to timber; alternative materials for “yam
sticks”

Constraints in Resource Management

1. To date, resources have been
exploited under customary systems and have appeared to
be limitless. In the new context of resource depletion
and population pressures, new attitudes need to be
developed, to allow for sustainable use of our natural
resources.

While
problems and issues are well recognised and there is
some increase in community concern over sustainable
resource use in many countries, in most cases,
unfortunately, there is no perceived need to address the
problems and issues involved and no sense of urgency to
find and implement solutions. The values of natural
resource stocks are not quantified in economic terms.
At the grassroots community level, many resources are
still perceived as “free” and “without limit.” There is
a lack of public awareness, of the potential scarcity of
the resources involved. Partly resulting from this lack
of knowledge or awareness, and hence lack of pressure,
resources are being liquidated for immediate economic
gain rather than being managed sustainably.

3. A second and difficult constraint
in developing and maintaining sustainable natural
resource management techniques is the limitation of
manpower to enforce environmental laws and regulations.

4. Lack of funding to tackle
unsustainability.

5. Financial and social pressures.
Population concentration and economic pressures may make
resource management more difficult. 11

Possible Actions for Natural Resource
Management

Management is not about the provision of
a ready-made list of solutions. Rather it is about the
creation of a framework or environment, which enables
the assessment of issues. This requires close
consultation with the local population, and the
development (and continual revision or improvement) of
effective strategies and plans to maintain the balance
between resource usage and conservation.

The practice of sustainable resource
management should take place mostly at the local
community level by those using the resources, rather
than by officials who may have little or no direct
involvement with the community.

Often local communities have not been
involved or consulted in the resource planning process.
In future, opportunities must be provided for local or
village communities to develop/acquire knowledge and
appreciation of the benefits of conserving and managing
resources, and to evaluate for themselves the relative
costs and benefits of different uses.

The most important factor determining
whether individuals or communities will manage natural
resources sustainably is whether or not they perceive
that it is in their interest to do so. This also
applies to landowners, who should also be closely
involved in discussions on more sustainable management.

· Addressing each resource

Conservation of land, fresh water, air &
marine resources

· Means of Implementing Actions

(1) Involving resource owners

Action both at national and regional
level is essential to involve those who have a stake in
resources, in the research, planning, and management
process. Actions could involve the following:

· Ensuring that local communities,
are well represented in national planning bodies or at
least kept informed of, and invited to contribute to the
planning process

· Seeking comments and inputs from
local communities on draft strategies and programmes

· Creating a mechanism by which
communities can assess their own performance and share
experience and knowledge with others

(2) Raising awareness and promoting
knowledge

Programmes need to be implemented and
maintained to fully inform communities about the value
of resources. Actions could involve the following:

· Utilising the media to promote
awareness of benefits and costs, using professional
communicators sensitive to local communities

Sustainable management of natural
resources is essentially a local and national
responsibility, since the issues and actions to be taken
are addressed in each country.

Commitment of the wider community to
national programmes is granted only when the government
uses resources sustainably and applies good
governance. Good governance implies that actions
and initiatives are made known in advance to the general
public, that different social groups be represented at
national and local decision-making. If government
bodies are perceived as wasteful or irresponsible in
their use of the resources, communities will naturally
adopt a similar attitude.
11

· National Coordination

In Jamaica, the national body responsible
for overseeing the country’s natural resources is the
National Environmental and Planning Agency (NEPA). NEPA
is an agency of the Ministry of Land and Environment
which became operational on April 1, 2004.

The objectives of NEPA include: promoting
sustainable development by ensuring protection of the
environment and compliance to relevant legislation,
increasing understanding of the environment, planning
and development issues and encouraging extensive
participation amongst citizens. 12